Chapter 1: Great Leap Forward

I don’t know exactly what happened, I think my hand took a plate and threw it at his face. It felt good. I finally wanted to hurt him. All of those times I wanted to hate him, all of those times I wished I could have wounded him. And he ducks. It’s unbelievable but he managed to duck and the plate smashes on the door behind him instead. The echo of the crash reflects off every surface in the empty apartment. We hadn’t settled into our new apartment yet and I hadn’t had time to set up curtains that would have absorbed the echoing sound. I saw the thousands of pieces that used to be a plate falling towards the floor, my new marble floor. I felt my heart shattering into fragments alongside the pieces of porcelain.
I said nothing. He said nothing. There was only silence. Not an ordinary silence but a silence where no one speaks and shame shouts loudly. I stared at the broken parts on the floor, it did not feel good anymore. I liked that plate. It was a special plate. A perfect plate that belonged to a perfect set with smaller plates and matching glasses. A set which is now ruined. Everything is ruined, I might as well throw it all in the trash.
“Sorry,” says the other person in the room. My metal chair slides backwards and the sound of metal against the stone floor jolts me as if a higher power had grabbed my body, lifted me up and placed me in front of the open, welcoming kitchen cabinets that invite me to total destruction. Piece by piece just as we had put the puzzle together, we will rip it apart. ”Don’t go ending our beginning,” says the other person in the room. Too late. ”First the china, then you.” And then the china set came to an end. As an obedient orchestra, they followed my hand movements one by one, piece by piece, thought by thought. I directed them to the floor, down the stairs, broke the ground, shook my world so bad it got me out of balance, got the other person in the room to lose ground and together we fell, with the thousand pieces of broken porcelain dancing around us, in circles, round and round, at least 10 floors down, crushed the concrete, sunk through the ground ‘til we all hit bottom.
My feet are pounding on the floor, at least 10 floors up, embraced by soothing arms, my face is all wet with tears, my body is shaking with rage and frustration but also with relief. I shake myself free from the grip, put my hair in a ponytail, tiptoe across the floor, and take a few leaps with caution so that I don’t cut myself on the splattered glass I leave behind.